Electronic devices include traditional computing devices such as desktop computers, notebook computers, tablet computers, smartphones, wearable devices like a smartwatch, internet servers, and so forth. However, electronic devices also include other types of devices with computing power such as personal voice assistants, thermostats, automotive electronics, robotics, devices embedded in other machines like household appliances and industrial tools, Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices, and the like. These various electronic devices provide information, entertainment, social interaction, security, safety, productivity, transportation, manufacturing, and other services to human users. Thus, electronic devices play crucial roles in many aspects of modern society.
Many of the services provided by electronic devices in today's interconnected world depend at least partly on electronic communications. Electronic communications include, for example, those exchanged between or among different electronic devices using wireless or wired signals that are transmitted over one or more networks, such as the Internet or a cellular network. Electronic communications therefore include both wireless and wired transmissions and receptions. To make electronic communications, an electronic device uses a transceiver, such as a wireless transceiver.
Typically, electronic devices use a wireless transceiver to communicate with wireless signals in accordance with some wireless standard. Examples of wireless standards include an IEEE 802.11 Wi-Fi standard and a Fourth Generation (4G) cellular standard, which we use today with smartphones and other connected devices. However, efforts to enable a Fifth Generation (5G) standard are ongoing. Next-generation 5G networks are expected to offer significantly higher bandwidths, lower latencies, and additional electromagnetic spectrum. Taken together, this means that exciting new wireless technologies can be provided, such as driverless vehicles, augmented reality, on-the-go 4K video streaming, omnipresent sensors to keep people safe and to use natural resources more efficiently, and so forth.
To enable these technologies, many additional wireless devices will be deployed, which is often called the “Internet of Things” (IoT). Compared to today's use of wireless devices, tens of billions, and eventually trillions, of more devices are expected to be connected to the internet with the arrival of the Internet of Things. These IoT devices may include small, inexpensive, and low-powered devices, like sensors and tracking tags. Thus, the transceivers that enable wireless communications with such IoT devices are likewise expected to be tiny, low-cost, and capable of functioning with less energy.
In other words, to facilitate the adoption of 5G technologies and the widespread deployment of IoT devices that will enable many new capabilities, IoT devices are expected to employ small, inexpensive, and power-efficient transceivers. Consequently, electrical engineers and other designers of electronic devices are striving to develop new transceivers that will enable the promise of 5G technologies to become a reality.